Lotte LentesEmerging writer from the Netherlands

'To this day that’s what I’m drawn to in literature: writing as research. In prose you can circle around something, move closer to an essence without going there in a straight line.'

Lotte Lentes (1990) studied European Literature at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. She writes prose and plays, worked as an editor for the Dutch literary journal Das Magazin and as a dramaturge for the Flemish theatre company NTGent. Lotte is represented by the agency of Wintertuin. In November 2015 Wintertuin published her chapbook De jongen, het stof (The Boy, the Dust). In 2017 this novella was bundled with short stories and essays under the title Een tweede keer kijken (Take a second look). In 2015, Lotte was selected for the Slow Writing Lab, the talent program of the Dutch Foundation for Literature. In 2017 she was selected for the Paris Residence of the Flemish-Dutch House deBuren and for CELA. At the moment she is working on her debut novel, which will be published in 2019 by Publishing House Cossee.

Lotte Lentes writes prose, but in a range of different formats. She alternates written and spoken texts, writes the occasional screenplay and frequently adapts stories for the stage. ‘That’s where my love of language was born. I used to do a lot of acting and I always thought that exploring the language was more interesting than actually speaking the words. To this day that’s what I’m drawn to in literature: writing as research. In prose you can circle around something, move closer to an essence without going there in a straight line. Fiction is a way of looking for a structure that wasn’t there in reality. Literature is intervention.'